Network computing infrastructure to share tools and data in GNEP

Kim, G.; Suzuki, Yoshio   ; Teshima, Naoya

Network computing infrastructure for sharing tools and data was implemented to support international collaboration. In designing the system, we focused on three issues: accessibility, security, and usability. For the first issue, SSL-VPN technology was adopted to access computing resources beyond firewalls. For the second issue, PKI-based authentication mechanism was used for access control. Shared key based file encryption was also used to protect against information leakage. The introduction of the authentication gateway enables to strengthen the security. To provide high usability, WebDAV was used to provide users with a function to manipulate distributed files through a windows-like GUI. These functions were integrated into a Grid infrastructure AEGIS. Web applications were developed on the infrastructure for dynamic community creation and information sharing. In this paper, we discuss design issues of the system and report the implementation of a prototype applied to share information for the international project GNEP.